Bekanntmachung. / Vyhláška.
Prague: 21 October 1944. First edition. Large bilingual broadside, printed in German and Czech. Ca. 430 × 620 mm. Folded twice, generally toned; otherwise in fine condition.
An official Nazi execution proclamation issued during the final months of the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.
Issued on 21 October 1944 and signed in print by Karl Hermann Frank (1898–1946), German State Minister for Bohemia and Moravia and Higher SS and Police Leader, the present bilingual broadside announces the execution of twenty-six Czech men and women sentenced to death by the Special Courts at the German Regional Courts in Prague and Brno. It belongs to the final series of Protectorate execution broadsides, reflecting the intensified repression that accompanied the collapse of German rule during the last year of the war.
The proclamation accuses the condemned of following the instructions of the London and Moscow radio broadcasts, attempting to establish clandestine “national committees” (národní výbory), acquiring weapons, distributing illegal leaflets, and inciting the population against the Reich. Declaring that such “traitors” had excluded themselves from the community of their own people, it announces their execution before listing each victim by name, place of residence, and date of birth. These underground bodies were intended to assume local authority upon the collapse of the occupation and subsequently formed the basis of local administration in liberated Czechoslovakia. Notably, the victims include a remarkable number of women, illustrating the broad social composition of the Czech resistance during the closing months of the occupation.
Like other Protectorate execution notices, the broadside was intended for public posting throughout towns and villages as an instrument of intimidation rather than judicial communication. Signed in print by Karl Hermann Frank, the most powerful German official in the Protectorate after Heydrich’s death, it documents one of the last waves of public executions carried out before the liberation of Czechoslovakia in May 1945. Such proclamations were ephemeral by nature and were ordinarily removed and destroyed after a short period of display, making surviving originals uncommon. As such, the present broadside is a characteristic and increasingly scarce document of the final phase of Nazi rule in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
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Price: €4,000.00